Definition Quality - What is your Definition of "Quality"?

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#71
jaimezepeda said:
I have felt like that many times. The funny part is that we would be firing a customer because we tried to give them too much quality. :confused:
Attorney Johnny Cochran has been quoted as saying, "You get as much justice as you pay for."

Perhaps we need to have the strength to tell some customers, "You get as much quality as you pay for."
 
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J

Jim Howe

#72
The president of a company I use to work for always said "Everyone wants quality but no one wants to pay for it".
I remember watching a TV interview of a very famous Chrysler CEO. He stated that Chrysler products are of the highest quality, they have fuel injection, turbo charge, etc.
As I recall, I thought to myself, heres a very successfull CEO that thinks quality is a bunch of add-on gizmos, bells and whistles. This perhaps plays to the customer perception of quality. :nopity:
 
R

ralphsulser

#73
Jim Howe said:
The president of a company I use to work for always said "Everyone wants quality but no one wants to pay for it".
I remember watching a TV interview of a very famous Chrysler CEO. He stated that Chrysler products are of the highest quality, they have fuel injection, turbo charge, etc.
As I recall, I thought to myself, heres a very successfull CEO that thinks quality is a bunch of add-on gizmos, bells and whistles. This perhaps plays to the customer perception of quality. :nopity:
If that CEO was Lee Ioccoa then I can personally attest to his commitment to quality having been in the Chrysler/Dodge plants before and after his arrival. Prior to his arrival the quality was ho hum and visibly poor paint, fit and finish. After -there were immediate improvements, and relplacements of plant quality managers with daily reviews at the end of the lines with cars marked with arrows pointing to unacceptable results.
 
J

J Oliphant

#74
are you sure

Wes Bucey said:
Attorney Johnny Cochran has been quoted as saying, "You get as much justice as you pay for."

Perhaps we need to have the strength to tell some customers, "You get as much quality as you pay for."
I've always felt uneasy with this answer. after all if quality is 'confomance to requirements' or 'continuous conformance to requirements'. why would you ever make it a matter of $$$ to do as what you claim to do? if the price is to low, aren't you ethically bound to raise the price so that you can do what you promise to do?

Certaintly performance and variation is a matter of money. but the degree that such performance or variation meets your agreed upon specification should be perfectly clear. the company should make a financial and legal effort to make sure the company is meeting requirements; and THAT is why every company should pay for an effective quality system. whether they make ROLEX watches or 2 cent ballpoint pens.

let me put it another way- if you buy a 'lemon' car, does it really matter to YOU if GM built 100 or 10,000 cars without defects. does a car that blows up coming home from the dealership have any more innate value, because they are 10,000 similar cars that didn't??

IMHO, no. that is why every company needs to measure and ensure a quality system. its cheaper and better to not make bad product in the first place; but barring that still the companies role to prevent bad product from passing a thorough inspection.


so, wes - are you sure??
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#75
J Oliphant said:
so, wes - are you sure??
Yep. If I make a pen for two pennies, my customer who buys it needs to understand it is a two cent pen, not a $1000.00 Montblanc, and that the quality and performance will not match a Montblanc.

A customer who harries me for Montblanc quality in a two cent pen is definitely going to be invited to be an ex-customer.

In a fair world, you get what you pay for. Similarly, if it is a $1,000 Montblanc I'm making, it darn well better be able to meet the most exacting criteria, or my customer has the right to be an ex-customer at his option. ("Sauce for the goose . . .")
 
D

ddunn

#76
This leads us to identifying the requirements. Requirements are more than just the functional attributes of a product or service. They can include price, delivery, environmental impact .......
 
C

Charmed

#77
Mercedes and Quality

Dear Covers:

Let me chime in here with the following news article about Mercedes Benz.

Bucking an industry trend, Mercedes-Benz is eliminating free maintenance during the warranty period beginning with the 2005 model year.

http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=100772

Customers who used to get free service checkups, labor and many parts will pay for them individually or buy a maintenance package that Mercedes dealerships will start selling.

Mercedes-Benz will save money, but some experts say it may lose a competitive edge......

Is MB doing the right thing? Is the EXPECTATION of service, previously provided, mean MB is offering less to the customer now and is therefore going downhill from a QUALITY perspective?

Quality, at least from a business standpoint, IMHO, is what a company is willing to provide at a price and also guarantee that the product meets certain minimum standards of performance, safety, etc.... Does this include what MB was providing its customers to date at no cost, FOR FREE, that is?

***************

I have pasted the full article below for future reference in case the link becomes inactive.

Mercedes dropping free warranty period maintenance starting with '05 models
DIANA T. KURYLKO | Automotive News
Posted Date: 9/8/04

Bucking an industry trend, Mercedes-Benz is eliminating free maintenance during the warranty period beginning with the 2005 model year.

Customers who used to get free service checkups, labor and many parts will pay for them individually or buy a maintenance package that Mercedes dealerships will start selling.

Mercedes-Benz will save money, but some experts say it may lose a competitive edge because other luxury makes continue to offer free maintenance programs.

Mercedes-Benz executives say the service program launched four years ago was not totally free. For example, customers still had to pay for parts that were replaced due to normal wear and tear, such as brake pads and wiper blades. Mercedes says this confused owners.

Industry experts say the move could affect sales or customer satisfaction ratings from conquest buyers.

"It will hurt them. Free maintenance is a big selling point for the industry in that segment. It's almost the price of entry into that class," says Bob Kurilko, vice president of marketing for Edmunds.com, a consumer Web site for car shoppers.

Under the new program, Mercedes-Benz owners won't be charged for their first visit between 1,000 and 3,000 miles and the first tire rotation at 6,500 miles. After that, the customer pays for everything including labor.

Dealers will sell new maintenance packages that, for example, range on a C-Class from $576 for two years to $1,312 for four years. Owners will receive a maintenance book spelling out what services are needed when.

Archrival BMW says it is sticking to the program it began in the 2003 model year covering all service costs, even wipers and oil filters, for four years or 50,000 miles.
 
J

J Oliphant

#78
nope, not an issue of quality

sorry, charmed but IMHO- this isn't an issue in quality. Its a question of value- because there is a company commtiment to stated requirement( or specification)

I think it is important to be specific and relatively limited in the definition of quality, so that we as quality professionals can be unequivable about the our commitment in quality. 2 cent or 200 hundred dollar pens, aside we will do all that is possible to meet our product claims.

We don't want to have our commitment for quality to be tossed aside for economic reasons. its not merely a matter of business. its a matter of ethics. does you company stand behind workers whom don't don't meet stated requirements? there's forgiveness for the human element- the lack of perfection, yes. but fundementally, a company expects workers to meet stated requirements- period.

A company should have the same commitment for quality as it has for safety. we don't allow safety to be comprimised for economic reasons and we shouldn't allow quality.
that said, I spend a lot of time of issues of performance- and I suspect many QA managers do, as well.

BUT even if process improvement X or performance issue Y can't be done. we should still need to meet a stated requirement.

about mercedes, time will tell if that decision was a bad idea. the market is effective at ridding, expensive courtesies that aren't fully valued--consider full service gas stations and the many services they USE to do every time you pulled up at the pump. I'm sure somebody questioned whether that was a good idea, too.

PS. BTW, I have become an ex-customer of the cheapest of pens for this very reason. I'd understand if they would just wear quickly-- but only getting 1-2 of a dozen that ever actually work, I'd give the QA manager heck every time.
 
J

jaimezepeda

#79
Wes Bucey said:
Attorney Johnny Cochran has been quoted as saying, "You get as much justice as you pay for."

Perhaps we need to have the strength to tell some customers, "You get as much quality as you pay for."
Wes,

Funny you should mention this. I posted the following not long ago:
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=9040

It has taking me a couple of years to get used to "Give the customer as much quality as he/she is willing to pay for."

I first heard this quote where I now work. However, I have personally practiced this (without realizing it) for a very long time.

Thanks for bringing it up in this post. I am steadily growing more comfortable with the following:
Customers will only pay for as much quality as they are willing to have. Therefore, suppliers should build as much quality into a product as the customer is paying for.

Jaime
 
J

J Oliphant

#80
do what you say, say what you do

jaimezepeda said:
Wes,

Funny you should mention this. I posted the following not long ago:
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=9040

It has taking me a couple of years to get used to "Give the customer as much quality as he/she is willing to pay for."

I first heard this quote where I now work. However, I have personally practiced this (without realizing it) for a very long time.

Thanks for bringing it up in this post. I am steadily growing more comfortable with the following:
Customers will only pay for as much quality as they are willing to have. Therefore, suppliers should build as much quality into a product as the customer is paying for.

Jaime
Not to be disagreeable, but I have been ever-increasingly against the phrase.

I suspect some differences might go away if we allowed the limited clear definition of quality to be ‘conformance to requirements.’

If we considered companies to be like individuals, what would we say about an individual whom promised something for money, then didn’t do it.
Possibly fraudulent, right? Even if it wasn’t the person’s fault, wouldn’t you expect him to do all he could to do it? At the very least it certainly IS a question of ethics, ethically when you pay a person to do something, you expect that person to do it.

If it’s an employee, you fire him (particularly if he does this regularly). Would you Not fire him because the person said??,
“ I didn’t do want was expected of me, because I wasn’t paid enough’. You wouldn’t buy that, would you???
Why do we want to give our companies a big break on this issue?

Companies that don’t do what they say they do are bad for society (tagushi loss) and can’t Possibly inspire enough consumer loyalty to stay in business. Your own job is on the line for that. Remember three business facts:
A CEO or other top individual can prosper by having trashed a company. He only has to grab big stock options, make promises he can’t keep, reap the small rise in stock price, and get out on a ‘golden parachute’. There livelihood is NOT on the line, yours is.
All companies keep prices to a minimum, if we wait for the bean counters to pronounce ‘there’s profit to spare’ and you will be waiting a long line.
Lastly and most personally, you and everything you do are that commitment to quality. Tell businesses in has to be in a high profit industry to afford you, and well their announce new cost savings (your job included).

No, the phrase is a threat not a fact of life. A defense from the constant erosion in price. If your prices go too low, there won’t be money for quality. This should be scary. No quality, no ethical meeting of the requirements you have, means no future.

There’s another quality phrase that’s much more powerful, and a better message to management. ‘Do what you say, say what you do’.

Granted there’s a lot of games and a little ambiguity about requirements. You can only be ethically bound to the requirements YOUR company makes. Meeting those requirements is the issue of quality we all need to be absolute about, the actual requirements and their fitness for the customer, those are issues of performance. Even issues of variability within the requirements ARE still not strictly (in this definition) Quality.

FOR, How can we be absolute about variability?? That would mean we would have to insist on the best processing that can be bought, which is ridiculous for some products. Buy poor processes and you can still have good quality-how, by incessant inspection. Thus inefficient processes make quality Expensive.

You can argue or give way about reducing variation, or using a better component for longer life. You are not necessarily compromising quality (although you may be hurting profitability). Send stuff out that doesn’t meet your claims- your compromising quality, being unethical, and possibly fraudulent. You and your company will not survive that.

Enough of the soapbox. :soap:

Do those that are unswayed- when and whom would you say such a phrase to? Would you actually answer a corrective action with ‘insuffiicent resources to address’? What about products with high costs and low margins- are they immune from high quality requirements, because there is no money to make sure they are good?? What about bulk processes with millions of parts, even a high margin could get pretty small by the time you divide into each part? What about ISO requirements that the ISO 9001:2000 8.3 ‘organization shall ensure that product which does not conform to product requirements (my definition of product with low quality) is identified and controlled to prevent its unintended use or delivery.’ OR 8.5.2 ‘the organization shall take action to eliminate the cause of nonconformities…’ How do you tell an auditor that the product just isn’t expensive enough to warrant removing non-conforming product or doing corrective actions (OR doing them effectively, after all why do them, if you’re not actually trying to stop nonconforming product).

Good discussion, even if it is a little redundant. IMHO quality (doing what you say) is about right and wrong, not just $$$ and margins.
 
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